Top Spanish Stations See Some Erosion

Radio: New Arbitron ratings find that both KSCA-FM and KLVE-FM lost listeners in first quarter.

A pair of Spanish-language music stations remained atop the radio ratings for the Los Angeles-Orange County market during the first three months of 1999, Arbitron reported Thursday, but both suffered a substantial loss of audience share while many English-language music stations were climbing.

Mexican regional music station KSCA-FM retained its No. 1 status but lost 13% of its share of the audience 12 and over for an average day between 6 a.m. and midnight. KLVE-FM (107.5) was second, with its share down 17% for the survey period, Jan. 7 through March 31.

Tied for third place and tops among English-language stations was KIIS-FM (102.7), which went up 19%, and hip-hop station KPWR-FM (105.9), which was up 4.9%.

Among the top ranks of English-language music stations, only soft rock's KOST-FM (103.5) lost ground from the previous three-month survey period. Its audience share fell 16.7% and left the station tied for 11th place overall with soft rock station KYSR-FM (98.7), which jumped 20%--the largest gain between quarters.

Roy Laughlin, KIIS' president and general manager, said the reason the station gained was that morning deejay "Rick [Dees] is back on top. When KIIS is hot, English-language radio follows. Cher and Madonna and Shania Twain attract more people and that works for everybody. And Ricky Martin, he sings in English."

Driving KIIS' jump was Dees, who jumped to third place in the key 6-10 a.m. slot with a 4.3% share to become the top English-language morning host. KIIS jumped even more in the 3-7 p.m. position, moving up 33% to capture first place.

Howard Stern, whose talk fest on KLSX-FM (97.1) had been the top-rated English-language morning show in the previous quarter, took a heavy hit, dropping from a 4.7% share to 3.6%, tying him for seventh place. KFI-AM (640), whose morning man Bill Handel airs from 5-9 a.m. followed by Rush Limbaugh, also lost ground in morning drive, falling from 4.3% to 3.8%.

Meanwhile, KSCA's Renan Almendarez Coello and KLVE's Pepe Barreto remained in first and second place in morning drive, respectively, though each of them lost some audience share.

KFI remained first among talk stations but it dropped to seventh place with a 3.6% share. KABC-AM (790) stayed the same as last quarter at 2.4% while the new kid on the talk block, KRLA-AM (1110), made a nice first quarter showing in its new format, rising from a 0.6% share to 1%--a jump of 66%. Still, the station only tied for 28th place.

Don Imus, who moved to CBS-owned KRLA from KLAC-AM (570) in the 5-9 a.m. slot, is helping to push the station's numbers. KRLA went from 0.6% to 1.4% in the 6-10 a.m. time slot.

Conservative talk station KIEV-AM (870) dropped back to a 0.6% share from 0.8% last quarter.

Spanish-language music station KLAX-FM (97.9), which had done so well in the last quarter, tying for third place, dropped back 19.5% and was in ninth place.

Among listeners 25-54, the demographic that most advertisers target, KSCA and KLVE retained their first- and second-place positions, though each dropped audience share--KSCA going from 8.6% to 7.3%, KLVE from 7.5% to 6.3%. KTWV-FM (94.7), the Wave, was in third place while KYSR jumped from 15th place to fourth place.